But should those numbers be normalized for total numbers of internet users?

I'm honestly not sure but I think there's an argument for it. The internet was a smaller place as a whole before Digg's collapse. They can't have had users that didn't exist.

On the other hand, maybe turnover can be more rapid when a domain such as the internet itself is rapidly developing.

Just seems to me there's broader factors to consider than Digg per se or reddit per se.

My best argument to this that I would gladly be proven wrong so I don’t look silly being wrong. Is there any example in the past ~7 years of any major cultural use content sites that had precedence like Digg losing influence the way Digg and others did?

The only examples that I can think of are things like Yahoo Answers, Quora, Tumblr. Leaving Tumblr aside just to see if there’s any other examples, are there? We could expand it to 10 years possibly? I want to stick to the modern smartphone era.

I list many sites that rose and fell as well as apps like IM apps. How many of them had peaks or consistent growth for 10 years?

My thesis is to not look for people’s opinion on changes. Look at the actual numbers. Web giants once they get established in this modern era. Rarely get displaced like Digg did.

> On the other hand, maybe turnover can be more rapid when a domain such as the internet itself is rapidly developing.

Yes whether this is it or not as the reason is what I am saying based on what is happening

> Just seems to me there's broader factors to consider than Digg per se or reddit per se.

Yeah I didn’t intend to say I knew all the reasons why. Just that modern web giants can’t be compared to the web giants of the earlier web.

I agree there's few if any examples of more recent entities. I also am pretty unfamiliar with actual numbers of active users per se, though. Tumblr may be the closest, maybe Quora although I'm not sure even Quora compares to Reddit. Maybe Snapchat? Flickr? Probably not; I'm not sure about those for several reasons.

I think there might be some kind of memory bias in the sense that we're less likely to remember things that have receded into the background or even disappeared but I agree that as more users come on board because of network effects it's harder to let go of a service or to replace what it has to offer.

I think you're missing something important in this analysis: Awareness of the cycle and outside interference.

I'm one of the first people to bail when a platform or service becomes unusable and a new one becomes viable. I have zero loyalty: I started out in Usenet servers and with individual webpages and moved through to blogs/forums, then to Myspace and LiveJournal, and so on. (Including the Digg to Reddit migration).

This option is less available to me now because most new platforms are either bought out (Instagram) or require such high costs due to having to support multimedia bandwidth that there's nowhere for us to go. I'm not happy with the current platform options and I monitor them for meta-discussion fairly frequently and there is a portion of the Reddit and Twitter userbase that is ready to move IF something suitable comes along.

However, my desire for a new platform is directly at odds with the interests of the current companies and, unlike in the Myspace era, Zuck + the people running Reddit are aware of platform death and use their resources to keep their platforms 'alive' as long as they can. This is also why we see things like Instagram Reels and RPAN: The execs of social media companies know about platform death and manage for it. Think of Google's strategizing for the future versus Yahoo's: It's not that platform death can't happen, it's that they've been the ones sliding in that dagger so they want to defend against it.

It's like saying that calvary are irrelevant because somebody came up with anti-calvary tactics and strategies.

We're in this weird situation where those of us who like to explore new social frontiers and build new communities are only being given places to do so that either a.) Have strict social requirements already built in and that just kills our drive to see what happens if we put humans HERE and have them interact like THIS or b.) Are controlled by corporations who want to use that for their own benefit, and I'm NOT teaching, encouraging, or leading any more people to things I think will hurt or exploit them.

It's weird.

I believe you and some other HNers are exceptions to the vast norms of how people operate.

I didn’t include the bit in my other comment where Discord and Reddit do ban major communities. So portions of those userbases are forced to at least partially leave. We have seen what that has done to both platforms. Nothing.

Yes platform death can still happen of course. There are many reasons they haven’t happened. Many reasons they did in the Digg days. Not all of the platforms have done equivalent “anti-cavalry” tactics the way some have. Still there is at most one example of a platform death in the past decade. Versus so many before that.

My entire point was to not use the platform deaths of the 00s as a reasonable direct retort to the shakiness of current web giant platforms. Especially when it includes things like wondering if others remember internet history. As if people who remember Digg’s fall are wise to something.

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Totally agree with your general vibe, sentiment, and your final paragraph.

> I believe you and some other HNers are exceptions to the vast norms of how people operate.

Absolutely, but in the same way that moderators and admins are also outside the norm but still have a substantial impact on how/if communities grow and develop (provided a community has them). Communities in general rely on a certain percentage of people in them doing community-maintenance work, and at least some of it needs to be done due to love of the community. We're weird, but we're also the people who ran around showing a bunch of people Google in 1998, or who were encouraging people to switch from MySpace to Facebook in the 00s. We're the ones who articulate to the normal people why they should switch platforms, where they should go, and why the new place will solve the problems. Building a platform without us is difficult, and so is maintaining one if you're relying on community spaces.

I definitely think you're right that the situation is more complex than it was, but I think you're overselling the differences. Things are bigger so they take longer now, but that's the main difference. That and the financial interests involved; if anything is constraining platform death I would say it's that platform death costs MONEY now.

> My entire point was to not use the platform deaths of the 00s as a reasonable direct retort to the shakiness of current web giant platforms. Especially when it includes things like wondering if others remember internet history. As if people who remember Digg’s fall are wise to something.

Fair enough. I tend to err on the other side because so much of the Web is built to strip information of context and I adore digital history; there are so many things discussed where anything more than 5 years ago might as well have not happened. Still, there can definitely be an undertone of 'stfu noob' to stuff sometimes that is offputting.

In my opinion reddit banning toxic communities has helped cement their dominance. I've tried to jump ship to sites like Voat early on in their life cycle, but whenever reddit banned racist / toxic communities, the people from those communities would jump ship to the most viable alternative. This caused the new site to take on the character of the banned communities. Voat got to the point where nearly every thread had someone lobbing derogatory terms at jews / black people.

I think if a new site is to succeed, it needs to have a heavy hand with moderation.

It has, but I think that's on accident on Reddit's part. So far, pretty much everywhere they've banned has been out of the Overton Window enough that the results are what you see. Voat, Saidit, etc. There has been one semi-successful small alternative in Ovarit (in that it's a stable community that slowly gains people), but the radfems set up an invite system + a lot of their beliefs are less 'crazy' + their ideology encourages them to discuss 'normie' things with each other.

There is one other way a new site could succeed, I think: A Reddit competitor with decent search and archive abilities, better mobile/app UX, and (here's the killer) a complete ban on political discussion and brand accounts. Set up a place for people to have groups for hobbies without having to prove their vaxx status (or lack thereof) or whether they like trans people enough. People (regardless of their political persuasion) need breaks, rest, hobby, and connection.

Not sure why Viber is on your list of fallen messaging apps. In the past few years I've seen more and more "X has joined Viber. Say hi!" notifications about my contacts (based in the US, which if anything makes me think it's growing).

My bad!